SXSW 2008 :: Day Three

:: Day Two (Thursday, March 13)

:: Day Three (Friday, March 14)

:: Photos by Craig Eley and Andre Perry

We awoke to the Saturday sun in Austin. I reached into my body for the final can of an energy six-pack that had powered me through the heat, the bands, and the partying. Craig and I dismissed breakfast and walked directly to the Fader/Levis Fort to check out the band Dri from Lawrence, Kansas. There wasn’t any food at the Fort but they had free 501 guitar pics and SoCo cocktails.

Dodos

Dri is part of the Range Life Records/Lawrence scene that also includes bands like Fourth of July, White Flight, and Coke Weed X. Mixing elements of pop, dub, soul, and surf harmonies, Dri recalls summer afternoon barbeques and the slippery, almost dream-like romances that follow a day of imbibing in the sun; appropriate given the fantastical construct of SXSW, a place where one can float through the day eternally drunk on Lone Star and indie rock. After congratulating the band, Craig and I pulled away from the Fort and began walking across town to the east side of Austin. Along the way we bumped into an ill-shaven Evan Sult, the drummer from the Bound Stems, who assured us a new and wonderful album in the works. We pushed past the freeway and across the train tracks, moving away from Austin’s congested city center and into its mellow neighborhoods, ending up at Big Orange Studios where the Daytrotter crew had posted up for a week of recording SXSW bands. We arrived just in time for the very last session featuring a set by Dr. Dog.

Sitting in the corner of the studio we witnessed a fascinating descent into R&B and soul. I’ve never been a fan or a hater of Dr. Dog: I’ve just never really given them the time. Watching them play in such intimate confines as they grooved their way through loping bass lines, minimal in-the-pocket drums, and slow, accentuated harmonies has definitely turned me onto them. Lather, rinse, repeat: they would play a song perfectly and something would go wrong with the recording; the engineer would walk out and ask if they could play it again; Dr. Dog’s three members just nodded their heads as if to say, No sweat, man, we’ve got it covered. Then they’d play the song again, even better than the first time around. Jesse from These United States was standing near me with a bandana tied around his long scruffy hair. He was quietly freaking out about how good the music was. Things seemed slightly out of time, though the South bristled stronger than ever, the air warm like sweet tea. During the middle of one track, their bassist slowly put down his instrument and walked over to the Wurlitzer to clunk away at a litany of funky riffs. The singer/guitarist just looked at him and smiled (they hadn’t had time to really practice this part of the song before recording). I sat down on a keyboard case, drank a Tecate, and closed my eyes.

Back on the West Side, deep in the throng of sweaty drunken music lovers, Craig and I realized that it was past 3 PM and the only thing we’d eaten all day were SoCo cocktails and cheap beers. After a couple of burritos, we returned to the east side—there wasn’t anything cool going on downtown—to check out a day show at the French Embassy (or consulate?), a wonderful outdoor space with a large rolling lawn. Little kids were running around and hipsters were sprawled out on the grass. It was a perfect place for a picnic or game of Frisbee. Just about everyone—except the kids, of course—was drinking PBR. I noticed a bottle of Crown Royal and thought it looked a bit out of place but Craig was digging on it. There was a tent set up for the music so when we entered, M. Ward and Zooey Daschanel’s new project, She & Him, had just taken the stage. As the band kicked in with their alt. country-esque pop songs, a wave of boredom, so vile and so deep, gripped the edges of my soul. When I saw some people who were actually enjoying the band, I wondered if there were any guillotines in the pantry of the embassy. For a few earnest moments I tried to grasp if there was one thing, anything, that would endear me to this band. They were so normal, the lyrics utterly forgettable, their competence so offensive in how it played by the book, and their energy so cheerfully even-keel I wanted to scream at them. I wanted to do something big, just to throw them off-guard, to frighten them into something interesting. I mean, OK, but where’s the fun? If it’s going to be straightforward at least have killer words (hats off to the Mountain Goats). Whatever, I waited in the long line for one-dollar PBRs with Craig and we bought several of them.

Okkervil River provided a much-needed boost. The band, which often begins shows with sparse instrumentation and a sharp vocal delivery before ascending into a full rock n’ roll romp, offers a riveting live experience. Their energy was so lyrical and fierce and it made me hope M. Ward was taking notes from the sidelines. Likely, he and Zooey were off to another showcase where someone would feel like me and someone else would love them. And I was okay with that, because someone has to like them and someone has to hate them and after all I had seen the show for free. That’s exactly how it should be: give us music for free and let us decide what we like. If we don’t like it, we can go separate ways without spite in our hearts. At the end of the day, I wouldn’t be opposed to having a beer with M. Ward.

Chromeo

Music is art not product. Does SXSW try to remind us of that truth or make us forget it? Or both? There are conferences and panels with industry cogs discussing and/or pontificating about the future of music. But when they talk about the future of music they’re really talking about the future of the industry. They’re not talking about the future of the art form. I ran into a band that was talking about a show they had to play for some suits on the top floor of the Hilton hotel. Can’t the suits just come down Stubb’s or the French Embassy and watch the fucking bands? Yet there is another side of SXSW pulling away from the system that the festival’s founders set into place. These are the day parties and free shows that Craig and I and our friends and so many other people around us have embraced. We really do come here to learn about music. Sure, we see some bands that are personal favorites, but what happened at the Fuck Buttons show on Friday was monumental to me, and the fact that I got to see X a couple hours later in such a nonchalant, wandering-down-the-street sort of way is amazing. I walked a few blocks from future to foundation and I did it for free. If the official SXSW is Rome then the SXSW Day Party is Athens.

Okkervil packed up their gear and Democracy reigned on. Kimya Dawson was shockingly good. Aided only by an acoustic guitar and her sweet, sing-speaky voice, she quite palpably shook the hearts of everyone in the tent. Her lyrics were so straightforward, cut with honesty and insight that kept us on our toes as we followed her simple melodies through the woods of expansive narratives and striking philosophical reflections. On “I Like Giants” she unraveled a slightly funny and depressing insight, intoning, “She said ‘I like giants / Especially girl giants / Cause all girls feel too big sometimes / Regardless of their size.’” Much of what Kimya sung had that funny and depressing quality and although she was quiet and playing solo every person in that tent was listening and watching her with intensity.

We had hoped for some respite, a trip to the hotel to lie down before the night sucked us back in but by the time Kimya loosened her hold on our hearts the evening had begun. We strolled down the hill back into the mayhem of west Austin to catch our last show of the festival. Craig was pushing hard for GZA at Stubbs but no one wanted to pay $20 and have to sit through a bunch of bands like NASA that might suck live. We settled on Mohawk where Brooklyn promoter Todd P was curating a show. There were ten or so bands on the bill and we only knew two—the opener Deer Tick, who we had regretfully missed, and the closer Matt and Kim. It was only five bucks and it was the first time we had to pay for a show so we went for it.

NASA (Squeak E. Clean and DJ Zegon)

At least half of the acts blew synapses in my head at this show, whether from sheer originality or the insistence that we party our fucking skulls off. The Vivian Girls were proud progenitors of amateur and crappy post-punk. And by crappy I mean the most awesome shittiness, a golden turd. These three Brooklynites were maybe in their late 20s or early 30s and they looked like they were playing in a D.C. basement circa 1994, which is to say they were in it for the fun of it. At a particularly signature moment their guitarist turned up her guitar so high—she even asked the crowd if it was too loud and the crowd said yes, too loud, but she did it anyway—that it was difficult to hear even the drums and then all of them started singing. It was a post-punk shoegaze girl group explosion.

Meanwhile Pig Out! (from New Zealand) was all about bringing the mother-fucking dance party. Taking a few cues from LCD Soundsystem, but perhaps going more directly to the source—Manchester, UK—Pig Out! could have been a band in the background of Factory Records. They played hypnotic dance jams, soundtracks for ecstasy casualties who weren’t quite ready to leave the club and face the day. They moved back and forth between a table of synths and music production boxes. There was a girl off to one side who sang with such disinterest it floored me. Yet the songs were funky and likeable, a welcome homage to some acid house sounds.

Then there is a chick in an art-damaged t-shirt with a menorah on it and she’s wearing some psychedelic-as-fuck fluorescent board shorts and she’s the lead conch-blower for Baltimore experimental band Ponytail. Some noise bands actually sing lyrics and cover them up with nasty vocal treatments, but Ponytail doesn’t really believe in lyrics. Their singer opts for a series of noises, pterodactyl punctuations into the microphone. Riding the landmine detonations of her drummer and the blazing psych-rock runs of the dueling guitarists, Ponytail’s singer belts out yelped proclamations that reflect the furious pacing and face-melting quality of the songs. All of it was quite mesmerizing, especially on the first song, because I wasn’t sure if she was gonna explode and shed her guts all over the audience. She was smiling, her whole fucking body was shaking, and it was clear that no one in the history of rock was having as much fun as her. Put simply, Ponytail plays orgasm-rock.

So, I was still dealing with that mindfuck when I ducked out to see Bay Area rockers Elephone do their thing at Bourbon Rocks. It was a return to songs, structure, and lyricism. I’ve probably seen twenty to thirty Elephone shows in my life and the center of the band remains lead guitarist Terry Ashkinos. The songs are good and the band’s energy is remarkable but Terry’s guitar work is astonishing. The Jonny Greenwood influence is undeniable—he plays a Tele run through a Fender Reverb and coughs out his sound through several delay pedals as well as a fine collection of overdrives, enhancers, and other boxes that I’m unfamiliar with. He rips off rapidly played single-note excursions with the delay sucking in my head. He’s all about the manipulation of sound: bending it, increasing it, bringing it back, and exploding it. I found it tough to plug into the rest of the band. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard the songs so many times before that I have to look for other things. The band was good though, having pulled back on their OK Computer fascination and tapping into a fey, almost twee-like, pop sensibility. Lead vocalist Ryan Lambert really isn’t the lead anymore. He shares so much of the singing with new singer/keyboardist Sierra Frost (that can’t be her real name) who provides a youthful contrast to the band’s 30-something male members.

Matt and Kim

And yes, I was still dealing with the mindfuck that was Ponytail when I returned to Mohawk to catch Matt and Kim’s closing set. Like a Dan Deacon show, the hipsters fucking imploded when charming duo Matt and Kim took the stage. There was a moment that really made me wanna cum when this indie-kid climbed on top of one of the speakers. It was a fucking tower of a speaker, a goddamn monolith and he just climbs up and sits on it, king’d. Matt and Kim were his servants, rocking out synth-dance flavors to the plebes. I was worried though because the kid looked high and disoriented. It was dangerous to have him up there. He could have fallen at any moment. He was an old-fashioned Lear, blind to the love of his sweating children, the unstoppable Matt and Kim. With no sort of warning or premeditation, the kid pushed himself backwards off of the monolith into the crowd below. He fell maybe twelve or fifteen feet into the pit. And then as if believing in Old Testament miracles the whole crowd came together and caught this kid, an offering from the gods and holy shit he was crowd surfing like a motherfucker through the whole venue. And there was my ex-girlfriend, resident heartbreaker from college standing right next to me smiling her fashionable New York smile: Oh just look at the cute hipsters (she had just come from the Perez Hilton party). And there was Matt and Kim smiling too and ripping out tunes, Matt punishing his fat-ass synthesizers and Kim killing the drums. Craig was missing out ‘cause he had left for GZA and I was thinking, Who misses this celebration for the GZA? I had seen the GZA before and I had grown up on the GZA; I was the first kid to buy Liquid Swords at my high school when it came out but Matt and Kim were throwing a parade as if Macy’s was irrelevant, as if celebration was new a concept. The songs, I guess, were pretty good, but that wasn’t really the point. In hippie terminology music is a force that flows through the universe and every now and then a band can tap into It and share It with the rest of humanity. Matt and Kim were tapping the hell out of It. Shit, they were hitting It from behind. She & Him wanted nothing to do with It. I came on my right thigh and it was really time to go home.

GZA aging rapidly

On the way back grilled cheeses were in order but also Stubb’s let us in for free to catch the last few songs of GZA. Since I grew up on Wu-Tang it’s always fun to sing along. I was happy to see him up there with Dreddy Kreuger and the whole crew but when he told us to keep an eye out for Raekwon’s Cuban Linx 2, all I could manage to say was, “It’s been thirteen fucking years!” A couple of folks looked at me confused. They must not have understood what it meant to grow up with that record, to have been in high school when 36 Chambers was released and then Tical and then ODB’s debut and then Cuban Linx and then Liquid Swords. It was a golden age but the GZA, these days, dude’s looking forty-something. It’s so much harder to age as a rapper than a rocker, I think. There he was, conducting the duel of the iron mic and I was just so tired that I couldn’t even think about driving back to Iowa on Sunday. I quite literally couldn’t take any more music or beer. And like a boxer crumpled under the last fatal blow of his nemesis I collapsed into a fog of sleep. The members of Ponytail were somewhere smiling.